Greatest Love Songs of All Time?
What are the love songs that get you every time? The melodies that sneak up on you when you’re doing dishes, driving home from work, or having a drink in the kitchen with someone you’ve built a life with?
On Valentine’s Day a few years ago, the Sirius XM show “Debatable” did a “Top 5 Love Songs” episode. It was fun. Loud opinions from lots of callers and some very questionable picks.
As soon as I got home, I just knew I had to start writing about my own favorite love songs. I never did anything with it. But I’m getting a music blog going again, and tomorrow’s Valentine’s Day, so here we are.
First, though, I must acknowledge that any list of “greatest love songs” – or any other kind of song - is ridiculous on its face. There is no objective “great.” It’s about what makes your eyes wet and throat lumpy. With that in mind, my hope is that after reading my list, you spin-up what you haven’t heard yet and listen with fresh ears to what you have.
It should be said that although I’m very much disposed to sentimentality, I am definitely not on Team Valentine’s Day. I mean, it was originally a feast day about martyrdom, persecution, and the general unpleasantness of early Christianity. So, just one more cash-machine holiday, far removed from its origins.
Anyway, what I am here for, any time of year, are authentic love songs that can wreck you just by thinking about them.
Downbound Train - Bruce Springsteen
This deep track from Born in the USA is technically not a love song, and I’m sure nobody expected this to show up here. Except maybe my wife and a few close friends who’ve heard me butcher it during our boozy late-night karaoke sessions.
It’s more like a love autopsy. Sometimes songs about loss feel more honest than the ones pretending that everything works out. Springsteen writes three minutes that feel like a short story where you can see the ending coming a mile away yet don’t want to rush to the finish. Dreams. Hopes. A wedding house in the moonlight. It all goes wrong and he’s left with a lonesome train whistle and a horrible job offering nothing but lonely, brutal manual labor. But the feels – they’re here in spades. Wet eyes and lumpy throat achieved. Thanks Bruce!
https://music.apple.com/us/album/born-in-the-u-s-a/203708420
If We Were Vampires - Jason Isbell
Most love songs promise forever. This one points out you don’t get forever, because...science. And that makes it lovely and haunting and gut-wrenching all at once.
“Knowing that this can't go on forever
Likely one of us will have to spend some days alone
Maybe we'll get forty years together
But one day I'll be gone or one day you'll be gone”
God, that "forty years" line.
It’s less a love song and more a quiet panic attack set to an acoustic guitar. So much honesty and truth here, despite our protagonist wishing he and his beloved could join the ranks of the immortal undead (it would be pretty cool to take up smoking again and not worry about the health effects).
https://music.apple.com/us/album/the-nashville-sound/1216344634
Something - The Beatles
OK, finally a love song that isn’t emotionally damaged. It’s just confident and free of metaphors. George Harrison clearly wasn't overthinking it. There’s a reason everyone from Elvis Presley to Frank Sinatra has covered this song. It survives bad lounge singers, wedding bands, and grocery-store Muzak. If a song still works while you’re buying paper towels, it’s probably immortal. There's not much else to say.
https://music.apple.com/us/album/abbey-road-remastered/1441164426
Maybe I’m Amazed - Paul McCartney
This is almost unfair. McCartney wakes up one day, just before the Beatles break up, and just casually plops out one of the greatest love-forward melodies of the 20th century. Plays all the instruments. Doesn’t even bother releasing it as a single. Can you imagine somebody writing a song about you the way he wrote for Linda? Lovely Linda indeed.
Rolling Stone ranked this #1 of all Beatles solo songs, by the way. I'm sure John hated it (but I do want to look into that). He was always the Kurt Cobain-ish one of the bunch.
Maybe I’m Amazed is not clever, ironic, or guarded.
But in no way is it a silly love song. It’s just Paul being Paul, which he couldn't be without Linda.
https://music.apple.com/us/album/mccartney-2011-remaster/1443150811
Can’t Help Falling in Love - Elvis Presley
The best love songs bypass your brain entirely.
“Take my hand
Take my whole life, too
For I can't help falling in love with you”
Take my whole life, too. I can’t sing that line. It’s not a technical problem. I just…can’t.
If Michele’s in the room and this comes on, we’re slow dancing. She never says no.
Of course, Elvis didn’t write this. There’s an interesting backstory about this song; hit up Wiki sometime). But it sure doesn’t feel like a cover song. The King knows what's up.
https://music.apple.com/us/album/the-essential-elvis-presley/217633715
I Love You – Climax Blues Band
I don’t know a damn thing about the Climax Blues Band. It’s a terrible band name. I can’t name another song of theirs off the top of my head. There are hundreds of songs with this name. It’s been accused of being a bit too McCartney-esque.
And if I’m being honest, there are a few lyrics early on which are awkward (“You got what it takes, so I made you my wife”). He sings about being a fixer-upper, which isn’t necessarily the most romantic notion.
Doesn’t matter. It’s about feeling, and by the time we reach the soaring conclusion of “I Love You” and hear this, it’s all over but the crying:
“Since then I never looked back
It's almost like livin' a dream
Ooh, I got you
If ever a man had it all
It would have to be me
And, ooh, I love you”
On paper, that doesn’t look like anything special, does it? But when the arrangement opens up and that melody lifts, there’s nothing ordinary about it. You believe that he really, truly knows how lucky he is, and how deep his love runs.
Looking at this oddball list, it’s clear that the greatest love songs aren’t about occasions or calendar dates. They’re the ones that still get me - every time - without asking permission.
Thankfully, we don’t need Valentine’s Day for that.
What are the love songs that get you every time? The melodies that sneak up on you when you’re doing dishes, driving home from work, or having a drink in the kitchen with someone you’ve built a life with?